Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


14 Comments

There’s more to camping than the sheltie-girl

The road to the campground.


If you listen to Katie you’d think that all camping adventures are about her, and I suppose in some respects they are. We don’t do things she doesn’t want to do, and on this last camping trip of the season she didn’t want to do very much, so we stuck close to camp.

Still, there were many beautiful things to show you.

The grass turned color depending on the light.

We made short forays into the deep old growth forests. The air felt cooler to me, but I guess a sheltie-girl’s heavy fur coat made it hot for her, even there, so we didn’t stay very long.

It’s cooler back here in the forest.

The ferns along the forest floor were mostly brown. I don’t know if it’s drought or they had an early frost. No one else seemed to know either. They were still pretty in brown, but I felt kind of sad that their summer was over.

Variations of brown.

Katie and I drove a few miles down the road to visit two lakes, formed when the glaciers slid over Michigan years ago, then melted.

Amazing color, even before the leaves really begin to turn.

The sky was an incredible blue and the lakes were perfectly still. I couldn’t stop shooting images. Katie was pretty patient about the whole thing.

Reflections in the still water were mesmerizing.

It would have been fun to kayak on either of these lakes, and I think you can rent kayaks from the park. But Katie said she wasn’t into boating so we didn’t check that out.

Lilly pads add some color too.

As Katie told you the last night we had a storm blow over, making the sky and even the air turn bright pink.

Pretty in pink.

It was pretty amazing, and the camera caught even more pink than our eyes could see. Everyone was out looking around in wonder.

I’m glad the weather cooperated last week and allowed Katie and me to get one more camping trip in this season. We’ve been so lucky this year; we didn’t get rained out on any of our adventures.

It might be a long winter, but we’re already planning where to camp next spring.

Sky in the water.


11 Comments

So much to show you, so little time to share

Jefferson’s haven.


As you have probably surmised, we’ve been traveling. If you’re following along on Facebook you might even know where we are today. And of course you know me. There are photos. Lots and lots and lots of photos. Many were intended to be shared with you on this blog, intended to be a day by day account of the wonderful things we’ve seen and done on this extended vacation.

Washington’s haven.

But somehow that didn’t happen, and now I’m days, even weeks behind. We’ve been to Jefferson’s Monticello and Washington’s Mount Vernon. We’ve wandered among Washington DC’s monuments and explored a few forts and climbed a lighthouse and toured a submarine and strolled an Atlantic ocean beach and walked over three miles along the cliffs of Newport. Just yesterday we explored five golden age mansions and ended our day with another lighthouse.

He had a dream.

What should I share with you? I’ve sorted the mansion photos and I could just catch you all up by starting there, but that’s going to be a long blog and I might do better to put it together when I get home, when I have more time, faster internet, when I’m not packing the suitcase to head for the next adventure.

A light in the haze.

So I’ll leave you with just a taste of everything. And even then it was hard to choose which images to share. I picked them randomly from little thumbnails. Nothing is edited, they’re just the way the camera saw things. No time for messing around, we’re headed out this morning for somewhere new.

Stay tuned. I promise to show you a tiny bit of those mansions someday soon. If Katie allows it anyway.

Submarine history tour


23 Comments

Mountains and a wedding

Yesterday afternoon we attended the wedding of friends of ours – a sweet wedding in a beautiful backyard filled with friends and family. It was a good day. And the sun shining over the mountains as we left the party made us smile too.

Beautiful clouds on a beautiful day for a wedding.

Today, the weather guy said we’d have more of the same sunny weather so we drove a portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway, looking for those beautiful blue ridges undulating off into the distance. We started out hopeful. But the higher we got the closer we were to the low hanging clouds.

The valley filled with clouds.

Until we were swallowed up entirely.

The cloud surrounds us.

The overlooks no longer overlooked anything.

What’s out there?

We drove very very slowly, but there was nowhere to go but on. Sometimes, depending on our elevation we’d get lucky and be able to see a mountain far off in the distance.

See Table Rock Mountain way over there?

The sun worked hard to burn away the mist, and eventually we started to see things. Like this orchard down below…

Apples are in season here now.

…and the beginnings of layering mountains showing their true colors.

And that’s why I love them…

We stopped to hike along some trails to a set of waterfalls. This was definitely worth the walk, the climbing up root covered hills…

Twin waterfalls! Aren’t they cute?

and flights of stairs to get higher…

When we were looking at the twin waterfalls we were standing near the top of this bigger fall!

…and higher in order to see some of the wonders that nature has hidden way back in the mountains.

Can you see the people?

We had a great time hiking through the woods, all the way to the very top overlook.

What a great day for a hike!

By the time we got back to the car and out on the Parkway again the sun was making those mountains glow. Just about everywhere we looked was a beautiful view.

I think I should build my house right here.

It was simply amazing.

Abstract art, but real life.

It was like this around every bend in the road. And there are a lot of bends on the Blue Ridge Parkway!

And now the clouds are pretty accents instead of hazardous fog.

Even though it was a very long drive, I didn’t want it to end.

Goldenrod signifies summer’s end, and the end of our mountain adventure. For now.

Sadly we have to move on to the next thing on our agenda.

But wait!

You say you wanted to know more about the wedding? Well, here’s the happy couple, very much in love. And of course they made us all cry when they shared their personal vows with each other. Plus they had really good food at the party after!

Here’s to many happy years together!

Congratulations Jackie and John!!

The cake was yummy too!